The present invention relates to electric flash apparatus and, more particularly, to electric flash apparatus for use of optical apparatus such as a photographic device.
In recent years, flash apparatus has been widely employed in various kind of optical apparatus requiring flashlight. Particularly, in the art of photography, artificial light is commonly used to illuminate an object to be photographed. One form of artificial light which is now widely used is that produced by the so-called electric flash device. In such devices, a flash tube is provided in order to illuminate the object to be photographed, but the arrangement is such that the light from the flash tube will illuminate only the object; if the surface of the object is contoured the illumination of the surface is uneven. Furthermore, when the flashlight from the photoflash is employed as direct illumination for the photographic object in a room or a photostudio, a shadow of the photographic object is commonly formed behind producing poor photographic results.
In order to alleviate these disadvantages of photoflash devices, it is known to use reflected, or bounced light to illuminate the object. In taking a picture by means of bounced light, there are still problems however, in that the quantity of light incident on the photographic object is much reduced from the predetermined value to which the device is set, particularly when a reflecting surface such as a ceiling surface is not white, and in that an object having an uneven surface cannot be photographed so well, because a significant portion of the light reflected from the object is not incident on the film in the camera.
To alleviate these disadvantages expensive illuminating equipment is required such as a front light, an umbrella-shaped reflecting plate and a backlight for eliminating the shadow from the background of the photographic object. This equipment, as well as being expensive is also bulky.